A King's Cutter nd-2

by Richard Woodman

  'East, nor'east, sir, upon the instant…'

  Griffiths nodded. 'Down helm! Full and bye! Heads'l sheets there! You there!' he pointed at Number 12 gun's crew, '…a knife to that preventer backstay.' Kestrel came on to the wind, spray bursting over the weather bow. Drinkwater looked into the compass bowl and nodded, then he ran forward. 'Tregembo! Aloft there and watch for rocks, tide rips and guns…' and then, remembering the man's smuggling past from a gleam of exhilaration in his eye, 'The tide's in our favour, under us… I need to know bloody fast…'

  'Aye, aye, zur!' The windward shrouds were bar taut and Drinkwater followed halfway up. Though fresh, the wind had little fetch here and they ought to see tidal runs on the rocks. He bit his lip with anxiety. It was well after low water now and Kestrel was rushing north-eastwards on a young flood.

  'Run, zur, fine to starboard…' Tregembo pointed. 'And another to larboard…' Drinkwater gained the deck and rushed aft to bend over the chart. Four and a half fathoms over the Basse Blanche to starboard and less than one over the Melbian to larboard.

  'Can you lay her a little closer, sir?' Griffiths nodded, his mouth a tight line. Drinkwater went forward again and began to climb the rigging. As he hoisted himself alongside Tregembo, his legs dangling, a terrific roar filled the air. The glass, the Dollond glass which he had just taken from his pocket, was wrenched from his hand and his whole body was buffeted as it had been in the breakers the night they picked up Major Brown. He saw the glass twinkle once as the sunlight glanced off it, then he too pitched forward, helpless as a rag doll. He felt a strong hand clutch his upper arm. Tregembo hauled him back on the yard while below them both the little telescope bounced on a deadeye and disappeared into the white water sluicing past Kestrel's trembling side.

  Drinkwater drew breath. Looking aft he saw the big frigate turning south away from them, cheated of her prey, the smoke from her starboard broadside drifting away. Across her stern he could see the letters of her name: Sirène. She would give them the other before standing away to the south-south-eastward on the larboard tack.

  Drinkwater turned to Tregembo. 'Thank you for your assistance,' he muttered, annoyed at the loss of his precious glass. He stared ahead, ignoring the corvette obscured by the peak of the straining mainsail and unaware of the final broadside from Sirène.

  White water was all around them now, the two green-grey islets of Bannec and Balanec, rapidly opening on either bow. The surge and suck of the tide revealed rocks everywhere, the water foaming white around the reefs. Ahead of them he could see no gap, no passage.

  Hard on the wind Kestrel plunged onwards, driven inexorably by the tide which was running swiftly now. Suddenly ahead he could see the hummock of a black rock: the Ar Veoe lay dead in their path. Patiently he forced himself to line it up with the forestay. If the rock drew left of the stay it would pass clear to larboard, if to the right they would clear it to starboard but run themselves into danger beyond. If it remained in transit they would strike it.

  The dark bulk of the Men ar Reste drew abeam and passed astern.

  Ar Veoe remained in transit and on either hand the reefs surrounding the two islets closed in, relative motion lending them a locomotion of their own.

  Twisting round Drinkwater hailed the deck: 'She's not weathering the Ar Veoe, sir!' He watched as Griffiths looked at the book. They had to pass to the east of that granite stump. They could not run to leeward or they would be cast on the Île de Bannec and irrevocably lost.

  The gap was lessening and the bearing remained unaltered. They would have to tack. Reaching for a backstay Drinkwater slid to the deck. Ignoring the smarting of his hands he accosted Griffiths.

  'She's getting to loo'ard. We must tack, sir, immediately… there is no option.' Griffiths did not acknowledge his subordinate but raised his head and bawled.

  'Stand by to go about! Look lively there!'

  The men, tuned now to the high pitch of their officers, obeyed with flattering alacrity. 'Myndiawl, I hope you know what you're doing,' he growled at Drinkwater. 'Get back aloft and when we've sufficient offing wave your right arm…' His voice was mellow with controlled tension, all trace of defeat absent, replaced with a taut confidence in Drinkwater. Briefly their eyes met and each acknowledged in the other the rarefied excitement of their predicament, a balance of expertise and terror.

  By the time Drinkwater reached the crosstrees what had been the weather rigging was slack. Kestrel had tacked smartly and now her bowsprit stabbed south-east as she crabbed across the channel, the tide still carrying her north-east. Drinkwater had hardly marshalled his senses when instinct screamed at him to wave his right arm. Obediently the helm went down and beneath him the yard trembled with the mast as the cutter passed through the wind again.

  Kestrel had barely steadied on the starboard tack as the hummocked, fissured slab of the Ar Veoe rushed past. The white swirl of the tide tugged the weed at its base and a dozen cormorants, hitherto sunning their wings, flapped away low over the sea. On either side danger was clearly visible. The Carrec ar Morlean lay on the starboard quarter, the outcrops of the lie de Bannec to larboard. Kestrel rushed at the gap, her bowsprit plunging aggressively forward. The rocks drew abeam and Drinkwater slid to the deck to lay another position on the makeshift chart. Griffiths peered over his shoulder. They were almost through, a final gap had to be negotiated as the Gourgant Rocks opened up to starboard. Cannon shot had long since ceased and the hostile ships astern were forgotten as the beginnings of relief showed in their eyes. The Gourgants drew astern and merged with the seemingly impenetrable barrier of black rock and white water through which they had just passed.

  'Deck there!' It was Tregembo, still aloft at his post. 'Rock dead ahead and close zur!' Griffiths's reaction was instinctive: 'Up helm!'

  Drinkwater was halfway up the starboard shrouds when he saw it. Kestrel had eased off the wind a point but was far too close. Although her bowsprit swung away from the rock the run of the tide pushed her stern round so that a brief vision of rending timber and a rudderless hulk flashed across Drinkwater's imagination. He faced aft and screamed 'Down helm!'

  For a split second he thought Griffiths was going to ignore him, that his insubordination was too great. Then, shaking with relief he saw the lieutenant lunge across the deck, pushing the tiller to larboard.

  Kestrel began to turn as the half-submerged rock rushed at her. It was too late. Drinkwater was trembling uncontrollably now, a fly in a web of rigging. He watched fascinated, aware that in ten, fifteen seconds perhaps, the shrouds to which he clung would hang in slack festoons as the cutter's starboard side was stove, the mast snapped like celery and she rolled over, a broken wreck. Below him men rushed to the side to watch: then the tide took her. Kestrel trembled, her quarter lifting on the wave made against the up-tide side of the rock, then swooped into the down-tide trough as the sea cast her aside like a piece of driftwood. They could see bladder wrack and smell bird droppings and then they were past, spewed out to the northward. A few moments later the Basse Pengloch, northern post of the lie de Bannec, was behind them.

  Shaking still, Drinkwater regained the deck. 'We're through sir.' Relief translated itself into a grin made foolish by blood trickling from a hard-bitten lip.

  'Aye, Mr Drinkwater we're through, and I desire you to pass word to issue grog to all hands.'

  'Deck there!' For a second they froze, apprehension on their faces, fearing another outcrop ahead of them; but Tregembo was pointing astern.

  When he descended again to return the borrowed telescope to Griffiths, Drinkwater said, 'The two frigates and the corvette are still hull up, sir, but beyond them are a number of tops'ls. It looks as if we have just escaped from a fleet.'

  Griffiths raised a white eyebrow. 'Indeed… in that case let us forget Flora, Mr Drinkwater, and take our intelligence home. Lay me a course for Plymouth.'

  'Aye, aye, sir,' Drinkwater turned away. Already the excitement of the past two hours was fading, giving way to a peevish ve
xation at the loss of his Dollond glass.

  Chapter Six

  A Night Attack

  January-December 1794

  What neither Griffiths nor Drinkwater knew was that the frigates from which they had escaped off Ushant had been part of Admiral Vanstabel's fleet. The admiral was on passage to America to reinforce the French squadron sent thither to escort the grain convoy safely back to France. The importance of this convoy to the ruined economy of the Republic and the continued existence of its government had been brought to British notice by Major Brown.

  Vanstabel eluded pursuit but as spring of 1794 approached the British Admiralty sent out the long awaited flying squadrons. That to which Kestrel was attached was under the command of Sir John Borlase Warren whose broad pendant flew in the 42-gun frigate Flora. Warren's frigates hunted in the approaches to the Channel, sometimes in a pack, sometimes detached. Kestrel's duties were unimaginatively recorded in her log as 'vessel variously employed'. She might run orders from Flora to another frigate, returning with intelligence. She might be sent home to Falmouth with despatches, rejoining the squadron with mail, orders, a new officer, her boats full of cabbages and bags of potatoes, sacks of onions stowed between her guns.

  It was a busy time for her company. Their constant visits to Falmouth reminded Drinkwater of Elizabeth whom he had first met there in 1780 and the view from Carrick Road was redolent of nostalgia. But he enjoyed no respite for the chills of January precipitated Griffiths's malaria and while his commander lay uncomplaining in his cot, sweating and half-delirious, Drinkwater, by express instruction, managed the cutter without informing his superiors.

  Griffiths's recovery was slow, interspersed with relapses. Drinkwater assumed the virtual command of the cutter unopposed.

  Jessup, like all her hands, had been impressed by the acting lieutenant's resource in the escape from Vanstabel's frigates. 'He'll do all right, will Mr Drinkwater,' was his report to Johnson, the carpenter. And Tregembo further enhanced Drinkwater's reputation with the story of the retaking of the Algonquin in the American War. The Cornishman's loyalty was as touching as it was infectious.

  Unbeknown to Warren, Drinkwater had commanded Kestrel during the action of St George's Day. Fifteen miles west of the Roches Douvres Warren's squadron had engaged a similar French force under Commodore Desgareaux. At the time Warren had with him the yacht-like Arethusa commanded by Sir Edward Pellew, Concorde and Melampus, with the unspritely Nymphe in the offing and unable to come up in time.

  During the battle Kestrel acted as Warren's repeating vessel, a duty requiring strict attention both to the handling of the cutter and the accuracy of her signals. That Drinkwater accomplished it short-handed was not known to Warren. Indeed no mention was even made of Kestrel's presence in the account published in the Gazette. But Warren did not diminish his own triumph. Commodore Desgareaux's Engageante had been taken, shattered beyond redemption, while the corvette Babet and the beautiful frigate Pomone were both purchased into the Royal Navy. Only the Resolue had escaped into Morlaix, outsailing a pursuit in which Kestrel had played a small part.

  'No mention of us sir,' said Drinkwater dejectedly as he finished reading Warren's despatch from the Gazette.

  'No way to earn a commission is it, eh?' Griffiths commiserated, reading Drinkwater's mind as they shared a bottle over the newspaper. He looked ruefully at his subordinate's set face.

  'Never mind Mr Drinkwater. Your moment will yet come. I met Sir Sydney Smith in the dockyard. He at least had heard we tried to cut off the Resolue.' Griffiths sipped from his glass and added conversationally, 'Diamond is at last joining the squadron, so we will have an eccentric brain to set beside the commodore's square one. What d'you think of that then?'

  Drinkwater shrugged, miserable with the knowledge that Elizabeth was not far from their mooring at Haslar creek and that the addition of Diamond to the squadron opened opportunities for Richard White. 'I don't know, sir. What do you predict?'

  'Stratagems,' said Griffiths in a richly imitated English that made Drinkwater smile, cracking the preoccupation with his own misfortune, 'stratagems, Sir Sydney is the very devil for audacity…'

  'Well gentlemen?' Warren's strong features, thrown into bold relief by the lamplight, looked up from the chart. He was flanked by Pellew, Nagle of the Artois and the irrepressibly dominating Smith whose bright eyes darted restlessly over the lesser officers: Flora's first lieutenant and sailing master, her lieutenant of marines and his own second lieutenant who was winking at a slightly older man, a man in the shadows, among his superiors on sufferance.

  'Any questions?' Warren pursued the forms relentlessly. The three post captains shook their heads.

  'Very well. Sir Ed'd, then, leads the attack… Captain Nagle joins me offshore: the only problem is Kestrel…' They all looked at the man in the shadows. He was not so young, thought Sir Sydney, the face was experienced. He felt an arm on his sleeve and bent his ear. Lieutenant Richard White whispered something and Sir Sydney again scrutinised the acting lieutenant in the plain blue coat. Warren went on: 'I think one of my own lieutenants should relieve Griffiths…' Smith watched the mouth of the man clamp in a hard line. He was reminded of a live shell.

  'Come, come, Sir John, I am sure Mr Drinkwater is capable of executing his orders to perfection. I am informed he did very well in your action in April. Let's give him a chance, eh?' He missed the look of gratitude from the grey eyes. Warren swivelled sideways. 'What d'you think Ed'd?'

  Pellew was well-known for promoting able men almost as much as practising shameless nepotism when it suited him. 'Oh give him some rope, John, then he can hang himself or fashion a pretty bowline for us all to admire.' Pellew turned to Drinkwater. 'How is the worthy Griffiths these days, mister?'

  'Recovering, Sir Edward. Sir John was kind enough to have his surgeon repair his stock of quinine.'

  Warren was not mollified by this piece of tact and continued to look at Drinkwater with a jaundiced eye. He was well aware that both Smith and Pellew had protégés of their own and suspected their support of a neutral was-to block the advancement of his own candidate. At last he sighed. 'Very well.'

  Sir John Warren's Western Squadron had been in almost continual action during that summer while Admiral Howe's desultory blockade conducted from the comfort of an anchorage at Spithead or Torbay found many critics. Nevertheless the advocates of the strategic advantages of close blockade could not fail to be impressed by the dash and spirit of the frigates, albeit with little effect on the progress of the war. There had been a fleet action too: the culmination of days of manoeuvring had come on the 'Glorious First of June' when, in mid-Atlantic, Earl Howe had beaten Villaret Joyeuse and carried away several prizes from the French line of battle. Despite this apparently dazzling success no naval officer aware of the facts could fail to acknowledge that the victory was a strategic defeat. The grain convoy that Villaret Joyeuse protected and that Vanstabel had succoured, arrived unmolested in France.

  Alongside that the tactical successes in the Channel were of little importance, though they read well in the periodicals, full of flamboyant dash and enterprise. Corrosive twinges of envy settled round Drinkwater's heart as he read of his own squadron's activities. Lieutenant White had been mentioned twice, through the patronage of Smith, for Warren was notoriously parsimonious with praise. It was becoming increasingly clear to Drinkwater that, without similar patronage, his promotion to lieutenant, when it came, would be too late; that he would end up the superannuated relic he had jestingly suggested to Elizabeth.

  Yet he was eager to take part in the operation proposed that evening aboard Flora, eager to seize any opportunity to distinguish himself and guiltily grateful to White whose prompting of Smith's intervention had clearly diverted Warren's purpose.

  Six months after his defeat Villaret Joyeuse was known to be preparing to slip out of Brest once more. Cruising westward from St Malo Diamond had discovered a convoy of two storeships being escorted by a brig-corvette and a cha
sse marée, an armed lugger. Aware of the presence of Warren's squadron in the offing they made passage at night, sheltering under batteries at anchor during daylight.

  The weather had been quiet, though the night of the attack was heavily overcast, the clouds seeming to clear the mastheads with difficulty like a waterlogged ceiling, bulging and imminent in their descent. The south-westerly wind was light but had a steadiness that foreshadowed a blow, while the slight sea rippled over a low, ominous swell that indicated a disturbance far to the west.

  With Griffiths sick, Drinkwater and Jessup felt the want of more officers but for the descent on the convoy they had only to keep station on Diamond, Sir Sydney having left a single lantern burning in his cabin for the purpose. Just visible to the westward was the dark bulk of Arethusa.

  Drinkwater went below. The air in the cabin was stale, smelling sweetly of heavy perspiration. Griffiths lay in his cot, propped up, one eye regarding Nathaniel as he bent over the chart. The acting lieutenant was scratching his scar, lost in thought. After a while their eyes met.

  'Ah, sir, you are awake… a glass of water…' He poured a tumblerful and noted Griffiths's hands barely shook as he lifted it to his lips. 'Well Mr Drinkwater?'

  'Well, sir, we're closing on a small convoy to attack a brig-corvette, two transports and a lugger… we're in company with Arethusa and Diamond.'

  'And the plan?'

  'Well sir, Arethusa is to engage the brig, Diamond will take the two transports — she has most of Arethusa'a marines for the purpose — and we will take the lugger.'

  'Is she an armed lugger, a chasse marée?'

  'I believe so sir, my friend Lieutenant White was of the opinion that she was. Diamond reconnoitred the enemy…' He tailed off, aware that Griffiths's opinion of White was distorted by understandable prejudice.

  'The only opinion that young man had which was of the slightest value might more properly be attended by fashion-conscious young women…' Drinkwater smiled, disinclined to argue the point. Still, it was odd that a man of Griffiths's considerable wisdom could so misjudge. White was typical of his type, professionally competent, gauche and arrogant upon occasion but ruthless and brave.